People who feel inspired to start sidchas sometimes ask me for ideas. Burpees, cold showers, and blog posts seem too much for many to do daily.

I thought of a new one, especially for city dwellers:

Pick up at least one piece of trash per day from the ground and put it in a trash can.

This one has been formulating in my mind for a while.

New York City is probably cleaner than ever, but its streets and sidewalks are covered with garbage. Most people would probably blame the city for not cleaning it up or not having enough trash cans.

Maybe.

I look to the citizens, or at least some of them, for three reasons:

• Producing too much trash. If they didn’t have so much, they wouldn’t have so much to throw away. It looks like it’s mostly from unhealthy food and plastic bags they could go without.
• Not putting the trash they have all the way into the can. Cans often overflow but people still pile new trash on top, like it will magically stay there.
• Not keeping their trash until they find a trash can. They created the trash. They can take responsibility for it until they find a place to put it where it will stay.

Mainly I look to them to take responsibility, not to blame, though I’ve seen people just drop trash onto the street, which I couldn’t imagine doing.

I can’t believe how much trash people produce overall, and then how much makes it to the street. I don’t complain much, but I don’t like it. I sometimes talk about how if I ran for mayor I’d try to create a movement for average people to pick up trash, to create a culture that doesn’t accept this much garbage on our streets—maybe even that doesn’t accept this much garbage.

Maybe I’ll start it by myself, for myself, and let it grow organically.

Some might complain that picking up garbage doesn’t fulfill the ‘c’ part of sidcha, for “challenging.” Well, if you think it could challenge more, you can pick up more than one piece. If you don’t do it, wherever you live, then maybe it’s more challenging than you think. I don’t think it’s that challenging either, but I think I’ll still do it.

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